Played a SIM today in a Challenge bye week. We barely scraped by with a W. I'm suddenly a terrible coach. Same game plan as last season with superior talent but the game results don't show it. Unfortunately, this engine is based solely on big plays and not on small consistent advantages so it's very tough to get enough data to actually learn anything.

More talented teams typically get more big plays and win. Less talented teams get fewer big plays and lose. But even for the more talented teams, the big plays are only a small percentage of overall plays in a game. When dealing with small probabilities and finite data sets (plays in a game), it's pretty common for the the results to be indistinguishable from random. That's my biggest complaint with the engine.

Finished season 1 of the Challenge at 2-2. I felt like I lost one I should have won when I couldn't get by caesari's 1-2-4 defense with no talent at DL. I knew I'd have a game like this after beating a playoff team last season. Overall, I think my talent is ahead of schedule, but my understanding of the engine has gone backwards. I can't seem to figure out how to maximize my talent anymore or the engine is randomly neutralizing it. Either way, I'm sucking eggs as a coach.

The season overall was a disappointment. I lost one game in the challenge which I thought I should have won. I lost to a SIM during the regular season. On the bright side, except for the loss to caesari, my other 3 losses were by less than a touchdown, so at least I was competitive.

My running game took a step back, despite having more talent at OL and RB. My passing game also took a step back, despite having more talent at QB and WR. My defense improved slightly against both the run and the pass. Overall, I was expecting much better improvement due to talent upgrade than what I got and certainly didn't expect to get worse as I did on offense. Big disappointment here.

I may have to revisit my gameplan since it is obviously not working. I'll copy and evaluate my games from this season and add them to my games from last season. Since I haven't changed anything for two seasons, I should have enough data with consistent variables to make some reasonable conclusions. I should have something new put together to test out in next seasons exhibitions.

A big hope I have for next season is that I finally skip the two human coaches on the other side of the conference. That'll leave me with only 2 humans on my schedule (besides the Challenge) instead of 4. That should up my win total by 2 and, hopefully get me into the CC and/or playoffs. My team could really use the extra game(s) for development. It still doesn't appear that talent matters all that much, but it will make me feel better anyway since talent is how I built my other successful teams.

Formation growth went pretty much as expected. My FR WRs grew more than expected and I'm at a loss as to why. If I can figure out causation, it could lead to 4-5 points by the time a player finishes playing, which may or may not be significant. Since i don't know how formation practice affects outcomes, I'll just enjoy the unexpected growth.

Player Formation IQs

* denotes players with a previous redshirt season and is the eligibility

Had a decent recruiting class but not as strong overall as last season. I had to miss some early cycles and that cost me some opportunities and cash. Hopefully next season's recruiting will work out better. The highlight of the class is WR David Jackson who is going to be a stud.

As expected, my recruit class was relatively weak this season coming in at #41 by GUESS. The team as a whole continues to progress at a decent pace improving from #40 to #25 by GUESS this season and from #150 before the Challenge started. If i can make the CC game and a playoff game or two, I anticipate being somewhere in the 10-15 ranking area when next season starts with a full roster of recruits.

Recruited players (SO, JR, FR* and SO*) continue to show good improvement, exactly what you should be looking for when building a team IMO. I hope we are able to make the CC and have a playoff game or two to get some more growth out of them going forward. Other teams (Bridgewater and Waynesburg) already have a few extra games than I do and I need to close that gap starting this season.

The Challenge games went better than expected. I figured I'd lose one game due to randomness, but I got lucky and that didn't happen. One strange game against caesari's Lebanon Valley. I should have won easily based on talent, but should have lost handily by engine randomness, than had an improbable 21 point 4th quarter comeback to tie the game, than won in triple overtime. I just don't get this engine.

I finished undefeated in the regular season, something totally unexpected. I had a couple of "closer than it should have been" wins against SIMs and I avoided the other two human teams on the other side of the conference (well, actually only one now that one has left). Aside from the Challenge, I only had one human opponent who is in my division. With so many SIMs on my schedule, I guess I'm not totally shocked. I am shocked that I finished ranked #1 by WIS despite having the #1 SOS team also undefeated. My SOS finished a respectable #27, I guess there just aren't many humans playing each other in this world.

The big bonus is that I'll get at least two extra games for player growth. Even if I lose the CC, I'm ranked high enough that I'll still make the playoffs. If I can start making decent playoff runs in my third season, I'll be ahead of schedule.

Overall, this was a successful season and a good stepping stone. I lost the in the CC and in the 1st round of the layoffs, but those were two games for growth i didn't have the previous seasons. My offensive gameplan adjustments worked. Passing improved dramatically (comp%, TD/INT, YPC, YPA). Rushing stats (ex QB) improved slightly while scoring more TDs (which shortens YPC). Passing defense improved (comp %, YPC) but I only had the same number of INTs. Rushing defense improved marginally, but I didn't have much of an issue with rush defense to begin with. I'll go back and adjust my defensive gameplan again in the next preseason but I think I will keep the changes I made on offense.

Next season will be the first with no SIMs. It'll be nice to finally have a team that's fully recruited by me. The season after that I'll have my first full crop of SR*s and I'm really looking forward to that. I'm hoping to advance to at least the second round of playoffs next season and will be very disappointed if I do not. If I can get up to 16 or 17 games next season with a full roster of recruits, I will be on track.

I had my second straight subpar recruiting class. I missed a few crucial early cycles last season and this season I just couldn't find the right core/pot/we combinations that I wanted. In the old engine, this would have been really bad. You could usually cover for one subpar class, but two subpar classes in a row would pretty much eliminate any kind of NC run. With the new engine, I'm hoping the randomness will keep me in it.